Worlds, Lost
by AmethystB
Summary: Karone and Leo talk about the nature of villains.


**A/N: I had intended for this to be a drabble, then it turned out to be just a little over 1000 words. So I pared it back and made it more minimalist.**

**To put it out there, I don't own Power Rangers. Shock, I know. **

**As a side-note, I ship this couple for the angst. Karone during her short run on LG opened up the most to Leo and I really enjoyed the chemistry between them. **

* * *

They're floating now. Directionless, waiting. Running in place to try and not be swallowed by what surrounds them. So this is the Lost Galaxy. It's barren, empty. A wasteland in ruin, graveyard to all things waiting to be consumed. A place so full of horrors, the worst of existence, and there is nowhere to run from it.

The scariest thing, though? Karone is just a little excited by it all.

After a twilight trek through the Mountain Dome, Leo and Karone find themselves standing by the window in the walkway between domes. Terra Venture provides an illusion and closes off the darkness of the universe. But the walkways show what's really out there, what can't be seen in the domes. What's outside, where does it lead?

"Do you think Captain Mutiny will send any more monsters?" Leo asks after a long while of silence.

Karone's wandering mind again becomes painfully clear. "It's possible. He'd attack the city, though, not the Mountain Dome. He wants more slaves. Mountains don't make good slaves."

"What about Deviot?" Leo wonders. "He got us into this mess. You reckon working with Mutiny was his plan all along?"

Karone looks sideways at Leo, notices his eyes are on her. He wants answers because they're so lost. Should she be honest? She hasn't had a problem being honest with him before, but she reasons that's because he knows who she was. But to what extent?

She takes in a long breath and looks back to the window. "Deviot is like Darkonda – they go where the power is. They feed off of it. If Deviot's now working for Mutiny, that means Mutiny can give him more power than Trakeena."

Leo nods. "Which means he's not done yet. If you say he's like Darkonda, any ideas as to what Deviot's endgame will be?"

Karone hesitates. Her mind lingers somewhere in the past. "Darkonda wanted to take over. He stole one of Astronema's missiles and launched an attack on Dark Specter. He betrayed his Overlord. Deviot could do the same."

"Yeah, with a name like Deviot," Leo quips. Karone smiles at that. "Why did you have missiles?"

"To destroy Earth," Karone answers without hesitation.

"Oh." A muted, distant sound. Leo knits his brows and looks at Karone. How close had they all come to being destroyed that day?

"Can I ask you something, kind of personal?" he asks. He watches her hesitate before she turns to face him. "When you were Astronema, what motivated you to do the things you did?"

What she finally says surprises her. "Power. Absolute power. It's not that I ever had it, but the _want _for it. The hunger to destroy and not look back."

They let the words drift through recycled air. Karone realises with an ache that what she'd said is true, never having admitted it before. She could have said she wanted to avenge her family, thought dead. That's the usual thing to say.

But the truth? That there was always more power to discover excited her like nothing else. _That _was what drove her, that was what had made her such a monster.

That is what she's secretly feeling about the Lost Galaxy, an otherwise unpronounced source of power. New territory for Astronema, untouched and wonderfully volatile.

Here on this bridge, on the very edge of existence, Karone wonders if she is stillthe monster, seeking power, feeding off the hunger for it. "I shouldn't be trusted."

Leo is close to her. "I'm still here, alone with you, wanting to be. You're other half tried to kill me, remember? You wouldn't let her. I trust you completely."

His words are soft and full. True. Karone turns back to watch the outside world. Leo just looks at her. Out in the wasteland, the sky stretches on with the most beautiful combinations of colours. Pastel fuchsia and deep crimson, painted between clusters of burned-out stars and fading planets. An aurora burning long into the eternal night.

The Lost Galaxy, an unknown country, beautiful and dangerous. Would they escape it? Karone wonders if she even wants to.

_-fin_.


End file.
